Monday, February 25, 2008

Two NASCAR Specials Tonight For Fans

After the mayhem of the Fontana weekend, there will be two special wrap-up shows tonight. The decision to produce these programs was outstanding by both TV networks.

First up will be Victory Lane on SPEED at 8PM Eastern Time for one hour. This program is a blast, and often has many unexpected moments and great guests. John Roberts hosts a panel consisting of Jimmy Spencer and Kenny Wallace. Since Wallace may be in the Nationwide race, we will see how the panel sets-up.

This series interviews the race winner from just a couple of feet away from Victory Circle, and gets emotional reactions from a wide variety of drivers. The goal of the show is to present the video highlights while also chasing interviews with the winning crew chief and owner. The resulting hour of unplanned chaos is usually a lot of fun.

Victory Lane will replace This Week In NASCAR, which could not be produced because most of the "expert panel" was racing in California.

Later, at 9PM Eastern Time, the NASCAR Now crew takes over ESPN2 for a full hour to present their normal Monday wrap-up show. Allen Bestwick, Marty Smith and Boris Said will comprise the roundtable panel for this week, with other ESPN reporters and analysts adding their input from the Fontana track.

Last week, in its debut episode, this show was outstanding and free-wheeling. Those words were not used a lot during the 2007 version of this series. Bestwick has worked hard to keep the momentum rolling, and he and Smith flew from California to Connecticut earlier today for this program.

Both of these NASCAR TV partners have shown a new energy and commitment to this sport, and the viewers have noticed. To have ESPN and SPEED cooperating and putting the promotion of the sport before the promotion of their own network agendas is fantastic.

This post will host your comments about both programs tonight on SPEED and ESPN2. To add your comments, just click on the COMMENTS button and follow the easy instructions. Thanks again for taking the time to stop by.

Guess there wouldn't be time to move the Speed stage so director chairs it is. Kudos to VL for getting into the mess from last night, Jimmy ever the NASCAR suporter (and people say Mikey is a Nascar defender).

I am sooo impressed w/Speed & ESPN for changing the schedule to do this!! I feel like we have had a voice, thanks to you JD!! And the blog about the race w/over 450 hits-outstanding w/all the folks from everywhere commenting. JR is making a biiig pt to let folks know this is hopefully a one time event to replace TWIN.

Nascar barely gives the Nationwide series the time of day so they won't have a victory lane show after the nationwide event. Did you notice in the background of Victory Lane (after the cup race) and after they moved to the infield, no one was in the stands. Glad they got both races in today but unfortunately, I was at work and couldn't watch either of them.

Fox, Speed and ESPN have really stepped up. Especially ESPN compared to what they gave us last year. The adaption to this weekend mess was fantastic, not one race put on tape delay. Missed post race coverage rescheduled and done well. I'm impressed all around, now hopefully everyone will get some rest before it starts all over again in a few days

Good NN with AB. One thing I was disappointed with was that AB never mentioned Jeff Gordon's engine problem.

In the segment AB called Big Names, he talked about Jeff and JJ finishing 2nd and 3rd. He then made a comment to Marty and Boris about HMS still a team to reckon with. There was pretty much an agreement and nothing about Jeff's engine blowing up.

All in all, good racing weekend shows. Hope all the crews and drivers get some rest and look forward to LV.